Oftentimes, elderly individuals who are at risk of falling or have medical conditions needing fast emergency response use personal emergency response systems to request assistance. Traditionally these systems are manually activated using a button, sometimes referred to as a “panic button” or more recently incorporating automatic fall detection capability as described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/192,855, entitled, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
Typically, emergency response devices consist of a wearable pendant with a button that a user can actuate in order to signal to a responder that he/she is in need of help. Such systems are typically characterized by a gateway computing device that resides in the home. The gateway computing device provides connectivity to a service provider (i.e., a responder) via a hard wired phone line connection via a public switched telephone network (PSTN).
Some emergency response devices may include an automatic fall detection capability. Typically, such capability detects falls without a user pressing the button. Additionally, some emergency response devices monitor physiological characteristics. Further, some are mobile systems that are unconstrained by the user's proximity to his/her residence or the device's access to a phone line.
Typically, such devices rely on complex central monitoring units that use complex signal processing in order to effectively manage data generated by the devices. In these types of devices, the device performs event detection and feature extraction, and typically do not have the capacity to communicate such relevant information for example for post-mortem analysis of reported issues and ongoing improvements of the device.